Single-Event Burnout and Leakage Degradation in 200 V P-GaN HEMTs Induced by 854.3 MeV High-LET Tantalum Ions’ Irradiation

In this study, we performed single-event burnout (SEB) experiments on self-developed 200V P-GaN/AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors using tantalum (Ta) ions with an energy of 854.3 MeV and a linear transfer energy (LET) value of 86.8 MeV/(mg/cm²). During the irradiation period, the gate voltage of the experimental samples was 0V, and the drain voltage was 60-100V with a voltage interval of 10V, respectively. The occurrence of SEB was observed at a drain bias voltage of 100 V. Moreover, compared to the pre-irradiation samples, the test sample with a drain voltage of 90 V exhibited gate current degradation of up to two orders of magnitude. The threshold voltage and subthreshold slope remain basically unchanged. But the drain leakage current is significantly higher. The SRIM (Stopping and Range of Ions in Matter) and TCAD (Technology Computer-Aided Design) simulation results well explain that the failure and leakage current degradation induced by Ta ions irradiation mainly come from overloaded electric field strength and high impact ionization due to charge enhancement effect and carriers accumulation and acceleration, which can lead to material damage. The incident paths of heavy ions can also be used as the leakage paths in the vertical direction.